Computer work stations are increasingly being designed in accordance with ergonometric studies which call for the positioning of the display screen to be at the operator's eye level or only slightly lower, and for the keyboard to be in the position generally accepted for the positioning of the typewriter keyboard in a conventional secretarial station. Ergonometric standards for computer work stations have been established by numerous military and civilian agencies and are discussed for example, in Electronic Design, Vol. 30, No. 26, pp. 99-100, Dec. 23, 1982 (Hayden Publishing Co., Rochelle Park, N.J., or in Computers & Electronics, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 42-48, April, 1983 (Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., New York, N.Y.
Unfortunately, these standards, which are increasingly being observed by the computer industry, are not suitable for the needs of a business executive whose use of a computer is limited to the occasional retrieval of data in the course of a conference. In that environment, it is awkward for the executive to have a separate computer work station at his side or behind him because in order to use it, the executive needs to lose eye contact with the conferee, and the conferee can see the data displayed on the screen. It is also generally awkward for many executives to operate a computer designed in accordance with accepted ergonometric standards because the bifocal glasses worn by many executives require considerable head movement as the executive's glance is shifted between the screen and the keyboard. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most executives have limited typing skills and therefore need to constantly look at the keyboard.